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AssigneeInteractive Silicon, Inc.
InventorThomas A. Dye
Estimating the term…
An integrated memory controller (IMC) which includes data compression and decompression engines for improved performance. The memory controller (IMC) of the present invention preferably sits on the main CPU bus or a high-speed system peripheral bus such as the PCI bus and couples to system memory. The IMC preferably uses a lossless data compression and decompression scheme. Data transfers to and from the integrated memory controller of the present invention can thus be in either of two formats, these being compressed or normal (non-compressed). The IMC also preferably includes microcode for specific decompression of particular data formats such as digital video and digital audio. Compressed data from system I/O peripherals such as the hard drive, floppy drive, or local area network (LAN) are decompressed in the IMC and stored into system memory or saved in the system memory in compressed format. Thus, data can be saved in either normal or compressed format, retrieved from the system memory for CPU usage in normal or compressed format, or transmitted and stored on a medium in normal or compressed format. Internal memory mapping allows for format definition spaces which define the format of the data and the data type to be read or written. Software overrides may be placed in applications software in systems that desire to control data decompression at the software application level. The integrated data compression and decompression capabilities of the IMC remove system bottlenecks and increase performance. This allows lower cost systems due to smaller data storage requirements and reduced bandwidth requirements. This also increases system bandwidth and hence increases system performance. Thus the IMC of the present invention is a significant advance over the operation of current memory controllers.
A method for managing memory accesses in a system including a CPU, a system memory for storing applications and data, and a memory controller coupled to the system memory, wherein the memory controller performs memory control functions for the system memory, wherein the memory controller includes a hardware compression and decompression engine, the method comprising:
A method for managing data accesses in a system including a CPU, a system memory for storing data, a memory controller coupled to the system memory, and a non-volatile memory coupled to the memory controller, wherein the memory controller performs memory control functions for the system memory, wherein the memory controller includes a hardware compression and decompression engine, the method comprising:
A system with improved memory access management, the system comprising:
A system with improved memory access management, the system comprising;
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.